Automotive industry, like other industrial sectors, demands dual-phase steel due to the attractive combination of high strength and good formability.

The high strength is achieved by the displacive phase transformation of austenite which yields martensite during quenching. The resulting microstructure and mechanical properties are significantly characterized by the applied process parameters of the heat treatment. Hence, a better understanding of the their impacts on the material properties are fundamental to design a material of desired properties.

We present a multiphase-field model based on the model of Nestler et al. to simulate the martensitic phase transformation in an austenitic-ferritic microstructure. The mechanical part is solved according to our recently published work, which is based on the mechanical jump conditions at the interface and uses configurational forces as mechanical driving forces for phase transformations.

We discuss the nucleation and propagation behavior of the martensitic variants and the resulting stress and plastic strain state in the dual-phase microstructure.